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span class="inline inline-left">Courtesy of Rahayu SupanggahHe has staged gamelan concerts in over 40 countries and taught the art in almost every country he visited while collaborating with artists ranging from musicians, designers and choreographers to wayang performers and film directors.

Introducing Javanese traditional music to the international community and popularizing it globally for over 30 years, Rahayu Supanggah is indeed a brand name in gamelan.

In fact, as a teenager he wasn’t inclined to be a professional gamelan musician. “Once I was even averse to gamelan because it frustrated my pursuit of civil engineering,” said Panggah, as he is commonly known.

Born into a family of Javanese traditional artists, Panggah has been intimately familiar with gamelan since childhood. His father, Gondo Saroyo, was a famous dalang or shadow puppeteer in Boyolali and his mother, Jami, an adept player of gender (a type of Javanese xylophone).

In his family home and studio, Panggah used to watch dozens of beginners being drilled at his father’s gamelan instruments. Those interested in the other Javanese traditional arts like waranggana (poetry singing) and puppet playing could also join in.

Panggah claims he never studied gamelan formally until he entered the conservatory school (SMK) in Surakarta. But he was always smarter than those practicing at the studio. “I was capable of playing a piece of music only by listening to it. I might be gifted,” said the professor at the Indonesian Arts Institute (ISI) in Surakarta.

Born in Klego, Boyolali, on August 29, 1949, Panggah joined an art mission abroad at 15. The lucky break occurred in 1964 when his school was preparing a gamelan repertoire for the opening ceremony of the Indonesian Classical Arts Academy (ASKI).

“My teacher and seniors were upset as one of the core gamelan players couldn’t continue. I was asked to play instead,” he recalled. Following the show, then culture minister Priyono, who was there to open AKSI, promptly included Panggah in the Indonesian art mission to Japan, Korea and China.

It was a turning point in Panggah’s life.

“It was the most important moment in my life. Returning from the mission, I began to delve into gamelan more seriously. I wanted to promote this traditional art to the world,” said the man who lives in Kampung Benowo in Karanganyar, Central Java.

Graduating from the conservatory, Panggah studied at ASKI, finishing in the early 1970s. After a stint in Australia as a teacher of classical arts (1972-1974), he toured Europe in 1976 and performed in France, Holland and Switzerland.

In 1979, Panggah created a classical Gambuh repertoire that caused excitement at the Composers Week forum of the Jakarta Arts Council and took him to a concert at Royal Albert Hall along with the London Symphony Orchestra.

“People may call me a composer, gamelan player or classical artist, for me the most important thing is to play music appropriately. Playing music basically is maintaining harmony. When we do it with other musicians, we should have mutual appreciation,” said Panggah, who won Best Composer at the SACEM Film Festival in Nantes, France (2006), the Asian Film Festival in Hong Kong (2007), the Indonesian Film Festival in Jakarta (2007) and World Master in Music and Culture in Seoul, Korea (2008).

Through the film Opera Jawa (2006) under award-winning director Garin Nugroho, he also earned the Best Composer title at three events: the Asia-Pacific Film Festival, the Indonesian Film Festival and the Asia Film Awards.

In the early 1980s, Panggah obtained his doctorate in ethnomusicology from Universite de Paris VII. Between 1980 and 1990, he became acquainted and collaborated with a number of well-known directors like Barbara Benary, Jody Diamond, Toshi Tsuchori, Phillip Corner, Katsura Kan and Warner Kaegl.

At home he has often collaborated with such top artists as Suprapto Suryadarmo, Jun Saptohadi, Suka Hardjana, Sardono W Kusuma, Dwiki Dharmawan and Idris Sardi.

“I’ve studied music by getting immersed in the soul of music itself rather than its physical manifestation. Music isn’t merely an aesthetic matter but also cultural makeup. It’s a philosophy of life,” said the musician, who in August 2010 received the Bintang Budaya Parama Dharma cultural award from President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

His wish to popularize gamelan to the world has been realized as, through his works, he introduced gamelan to the international community. One of his compositions became the main part of the Bugis epic I La Galigo, a music-theater work by renowned director Robert Wilson.

Panggah has also collaborated with Kronos, America’s most prestigious string quartet. His other spectacular compositions have graced the operas Mahabharata, King Lear, Opera Jawa and Purnati.

“Traditional music is not fixed. It’s just very powerful. Like a pearl it needs polishing to make it shiny. By remaining static, it will be abandoned by its community,” said the chairman of the Indonesian Arts College Surakarta between 1998 and 2003 before it changed to ISI Surakarta.

His association with so many other musicians has caused the father of three not only to master the gamelan music of Java, Bali and Makassar, but also to have some knowledge of traditonal Japanese and French music. No wonder Panggah has created new compositions he calls pamijen.

“Some say such compositions violate classical standards. But I do it to avoid any of the statis of traditional music. In my works pamijen arrangements have dominated orchestration,” noted Panggah, who will stage his shows in Germany, Switzerland, Britain and Malaysia this year.

Amid his busy teaching schedule, Panggah still gives regular gamelan workshops and serves as a guest lecturer in the US, Australia and several European countries.

 “There are 600 gamelan sets in America and 100 in Britain. While gamelan used to be played on the street, now it has appeared in the world’s prestigious buildings,” said the modest musician, who enjoys growing plants and keeping domestic animals in his house by the bank of Solo River.